Author
Topic: S/O telling children about Santa (Read 11319 times)

This is a spin-off from the Christmas Help post - as I realized I would like help in dealing with this situation myself and I didn't want to hijack the other thread. Current Santa believers stop reading now please - spoiler alert .

My children (7 & 9) still believe in Santa Claus as do most of their friends. I have been getting worried of late about how they will react when they find out the truth How have other people dealt with this issue? Did you tell your children or let them find out for themselves? Once they found out did they accuse you of lying to them, which is my friends fear?

Logged

bellawitch

Kids get over this. I did Santa with my kids until they could stay awake longer than me. I just couldn't wait for them to get to sleep so I could do the Santa thing. So I just said, look here guys.........it's a bit of fun they get to enjoy for a few years, if you don't make it out to be the end of the world they won't either. We actually had some laughs about some of the things we did to keep the Santa myth alive.

I think what happens most of the time is someone at school figures it out (sometimes that child is actually yours but it's about 25/30 to 1) that child then tells everyone else and then the kids don't tell their parents because mom and dad look are so excited to be Santa the kids just don't want to spoil Christmas for their parents

My son was a figureouter he wasn't upset or hurt and we went a few years were we both played along, but didn't do letters to Santa or go to see Santa.

I told my kids that Santa wasn't a real person, but a symbol of the spirit of Christmas-to be generous and happy. They just got over all of it without problems, but I never built it up in the first place.

Once they found out did they accuse you of lying to them, which is my friends fear?

Oh, MsMarjorie, you and your friends have not been lying to your kids. Santa does exist. Santa is the love people (parents mainly, but many other people too) have for children. The guy in the red suit just is a Representative of that love. He's quite real, in our minds and souls. To deny him is to deny love.

On the other hand, that flying around the world and dropping down chimneys part? Well kids your age are old enough to figure out that the logistics . . . well, you know. That's the imaginary part of Santa, but part of the fun for "the little kids".

When my sister figured it out, mom felt she had to tell me - after all I'm 4 years older. I of course laughed having figured it out long before.

I was raised with lots of folk tales, and family members that told you things like chocolate milk could only come from brown cows. There was no sense of being betrayed - instead it was being charished. I got to keep making the magic for Sis and the younger ones.

We're not "doing" Santa with Babybartfast - she's 2 now, so this coming Christmas will be the first one where she actually understands anyway. We're not trying to hide her from the Santa story, just laying it all out: at Christmas some grown-ups play a big game of pretend, where everyone pretends there is a man named Santa who comes down chimneys and leaves presents. And we'll leave it up to her whether she wants to join in the big game of pretend or not.

We do intend to emphasize that she shouldn't go around telling other kids that Santa isn't real, but hopefully if we don't make a big deal about it anyway (good or bad) she won't think it's important enough to bring up in conversation once she gets old enough to have friends who believe!

Just because they haven't asked doesn't mean that they haven't figured it out. DS #1 asked when he was 7, I asked "what's making you ask" and he came up with a number of reasons why the story just didn't add up. I came-clean and he wasn't disappointed and promised not to say anything to his 6 year old brother. Brother never did ask, and years later I found out that he "knew" even before his older brother asked.

My private opinion - I actually think it's doing a disservice to kids to keep insisting that the story is "real" when it's their own brain-power that's been giving them doubts. To say "if you stop believing, Santa will stop coming" sounds like borderline-threatening to me. I've never once heard of a child who became upset with his/her parents when finding out that Santa was parental-magic rather than a real entity. And maybe the first Christmas when the "gifts from Santa" are more symbolic than real is a bit less magical - that's part of the maturtion process.

I belived in Santa. In fact, we left out a turkey sandwich and a Coke for Santa. A sandwich made surprisingly like how mom liked it

I told mom I knew about Santa in 3rd grade. Before that mom had told my brother and I that "Santa's on a budget, but he'll get you what he can." The tooth fairy also only came on Saturdays too for some reason. I think it's easier to do Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth fairy when you can actually afford to. Kids tend to figure out quick that when Santa has a budget, or the Easter Bunny can only get the cheap candy, or the Tooth Fairy only comes on payday, that it may be the parents.

I do want to do Santa ect when I have kids in the future, but plans to change...

Oh gosh, we had soo much drama last Christmas when my nephew got p*ssy and decided to tell his little sister there was no santa, and showed her all the presents my sis had bought and hid

They are three years apart, 8 & 11, and have always gotten along really well. The approaching puberty has been wreaking havok (that was also the same day he 'ran away from home') and my sister was having a meltdown of her own over this issue. She ran out and bought a whole bunch more presents (even for him, the little *coughcough*) so they wouldn't be 'disappointed'. Oi.

Oh gosh, we had soo much drama last Christmas when my nephew got p*ssy and decided to tell his little sister there was no santa, and showed her all the presents my sis had bought and hid

They are three years apart, 8 & 11, and have always gotten along really well. The approaching puberty has been wreaking havok (that was also the same day he 'ran away from home') and my sister was having a meltdown of her own over this issue. She ran out and bought a whole bunch more presents (even for him, the little *coughcough*) so they wouldn't be 'disappointed'. Oi.

No advice, just commiseration.

My guess it that he knew how to push Mom's buttons. Chances are that Little Sister already knew, anyway.

Oh gosh, we had soo much drama last Christmas when my nephew got p*ssy and decided to tell his little sister there was no santa, and showed her all the presents my sis had bought and hid

They are three years apart, 8 & 11, and have always gotten along really well. The approaching puberty has been wreaking havok (that was also the same day he 'ran away from home') and my sister was having a meltdown of her own over this issue. She ran out and bought a whole bunch more presents (even for him, the little *coughcough*) so they wouldn't be 'disappointed'. Oi.

No advice, just commiseration.

My guess it that he knew how to push Mom's buttons. Chances are that Little Sister already knew, anyway.

Yeah, that's kinda my feeling. I think my sister is more invested in this than the kids.

My mom had four kids, with 7 years between the oldest and youngest. I don't remember exactly how it was handled, only a general sense of when you found out about santa, you tried to keep the secret from the younger ones, but the younger ones knew at an earlier age than the older. No one was traumatized for life